The Early Twentieth Century(1900 to 1945)

The Progressive Era and World War I

• The Populist movement dissipated, but not before making people think about reforming society through government actions

• The Populists’ success in both local and national elections encouraged others to seek change through political actions

• The Progressives came to dominate 1900-1920

• The Populists were mainly farmers who advocated radical reforms; the Progressives were urban, middle-class reformers who wanted to increase the role of government in reform while maintaining a capitalist economy

The Progressive Movement

• One of the reasons Populism failed is that its constituents were poor, so they had to spend most of their time working, not politically campaigning

• The Progressives were urban and middle-class, so they began with more economic/political power AND could spend more time campaigning

• Most Progressives were Northern and middle class, so their movement didn’t intensify regional/class differences, like the Southern/Western Populists did

Roots of Progressivism

• The National Woman Suffrage Association, the American Bar Association, and National Municipal League are some of the many groups that rallied citizens around a cause or profession

• Most members were educated/middle class

• The blatant corruption they saw in business and politics offended their senses of decency, as did the terrible plight of the urban poor

• Progressivism got a further boost from journalists who exposed greed

• They were called “muckrakers” by President Theodore Roosevelt

Muckrakers

• These muckrakers exposed corruption in urban management (Lincoln Steffens’s The Shame of the Cities), in oil companies (Ida Tarbell’s History of Standard Oil), and the meatpacking industry (Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle)—these raised the moral stakes for Progressives

• From 1900-1920, Progressives succeeded, fighting for government regulation like previous groups fought for orphans/prostitutes/the mentally infirm

• New groups fought discrimination; W.E.B. DuBois led the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to end racism…that didn’t work, and DuBois eventually moved to Africa

Picture of W.E.B. DuBois

Female Progressives

• The conservative opposition female progressives faced gave birth to the feminist movement

• One early feminist, Margaret Sanger, promoted contraceptives (which were illegal in many places)

• Women ultimately won the right to vote, granted by the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920

Picture of Margaret Sanger

State Leaders

• Wisconsin governor Robert La Follette led the way for many Progressive state leaders; Wisconsin implemented plans for direct primary elections, progressive taxation, and rail regulation

• Many states adopted the ballot initiative, through which voters could propose new laws; the referendum, which let the public vote on new laws, and the recall election, which gave voters the power to remove officials from office before their terms expired

• Working-class Progressives limited the length of the work day, created minimum-wage requirements, child labor laws, urban housing codes, and progressive income taxes

Picture of Robert La Follette

Theodore Roosevelt

• President Theodore Roosevelt was the most prominent Progressive leader

• McKinley was conservative, and Roosevelt was expected to be the same; when he won the 1904 election, he used the Sherman Antitrust Act against monopolies—he got the nickname “The Trustbuster”

• He also made new food/drug regulations, national parks, and (as an outdoorsman/conservationist), protected land from overdevelopment – Control of Corporations, Consumer Protection, Conservation of the environment (his three Cs)

Picture of Theodore Roosevelt

William Howard Taft

• William Howard Taft, President after Roosevelt, pursued monopolies/broke up trusts even more aggressively

• He pushed for two constitutional amendments

• 16th Amendment – created a national income tax

• 17th Amendment – allowed for the direct election of Senators

• He also got stuck in a bathtub

• Only former president to also sit on the Supreme Court; served as the 10th Chief Justice from 1921 to 1930

Picture of Taft

Turning Point

• The federal government increased its involvement in our daily lives during this Era

• The third Progressive president was Woodrow Wilson, a Democrat who had to distinguish himself from Teddy Roosevelt

• Teddy Roosevelt ran for reelection (after Taft’s one term) on the Bull Moose ticket in 1912

• While Roosevelt’s policies are often referred to as New Nationalism, Wilson’s were called the New Freedom.

Picture of Woodrow Wilson

Wilson v. Roosevelt

• Thomas Jefferson wanted to limit the federal government to protect individual liberty, but Wilson argued that the federal government should control businesses to protect man’s freedom

• Roosevelt said there were good AND bad trusts, but Wilson said that all trusts were monopolies, which violated freedom for workers/consumers

• Wilson wanted to restore competition through greater government regulation of the economy and lowering the tariff

• Wilson won, made the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), fought for the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914, and made the Federal Reserve System, which gives the government more control the USA’s money

Lasting Progressivism

• Progressives lasted until the end of World War I, at which point the nation, tired from war and the Spanish Flu Outbreak of 1918, stepped back

• The war had torn apart the Progressive coalition; pacifist Progressives opposed the war while others supported it

• A “Red Scare,” heightened by the Russian Revolution, split the Progressive coalition by dividing the leftists from the moderates

• Moreover, the Progressive movement had achieved many of its goals, and as it did, it lost the support of those interest groups whose ends had been met

Foreign Policy: Cuba

• Roosevelt concurred with McKinley on foreign policy

• In 1903, the Roosevelt administration strong-armed Cuba into the Platt Amendment, which gave the US control of Cuba; it couldn’t make a treaty with another nation without U.S. approval, and the US could intervene in Cuba’s affairs if we felt like it

• For 10 of the years between 1906 and 1922, the American military occupied Cuba, arousing anti-American sentiments on the land

Foreign Policy: Central America

• Roosevelt wanted to build a canal through Central America, since it would shorten the sea trip from New York to California; Congress approved a plan for a canal through Panama (which was in Colombia)

• Colombia asked for more money than Congress wanted to spend, so US urged Panamanian rebels to revolt, and gave them weapons

• The new government gave us a better price; to ensure it stayed a good deal, US military forces intervened throughout the next 20 years

• The idea that Latin American instability hurt America, so we need to get involved, is the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine (“speak softly and carry a big stick”)

“Big Stick” Diplomacy

International Turmoil

• American foreign policy adhered to the Monroe Doctrine, which asserted America’s right to be international police and mess with anything in the Western Hemisphere where it felt its national security was at stake; it also stated that America should have no part of Europe’s internal disputes

• American commitment to that aspect of the Monroe Doctrine would soon be tested, as Europe was entering World War I

• Complicating the matter—US and England were becoming allies; England hadn’t stepped in and messed us up in Latin America…this is because they wanted us to help in their rivalry with Germany

World War I

• Don’t need to know what led Europe into war, but DO need to know about how America acted

• Woodrow Wilson won the election of 1912 as a Democrat against Taft (Republican) and Roosevelt (Bull-Moose)

• Wilson just had 40% of the overall votes, but nearly every American (when polled) wanted to stay out of European conflict. When war broke out in August of 1914, Wilson declared the U.S. policy of neutrality. Neutrality said that we should treat the fighters fairly, and without favoritism. Wilson wanted us to help settle the conflict and become the world’s arbiter.

Not Truly Neutral

• America already had a close relationship with England, and a distant one with Germany and Austria-Hungary; a number of Wilson’s advisors openly favored the Allies (led by the British)

• England’s strategic location and navy let it impose a blockade on shipments headed for Germany, particularly those coming from the United States

• Protests were futile; the British government impounded and confiscated American ships. They paid for the cargo, reducing the pressure that American merchants would have put on the U.S. government to take action against the British blockade

Germany Responds

• Germany countered the blockade with submarines, or U-boats

• According to contemporaneous international law, an attacker had to warn civilian ships before attacking

• Submarines couldn’t do this, because doing so would eliminate their main advantage

• When Germans attacked civilian ships, it was ‘cause those ships were carrying military supplies

• The Germans announced this ahead of time, but Wilson wanted them to adhere to international law

Sinking of the Lusitania

• When German submarines sank the passenger ship Lusitania in 1915 (killing 1,198 passengers, including 128 Americans), the action provoked the condemnation of the American government/public

• To be fair, the ship was carrying tons of British ammunition

• The sinking of the ship/bad publicity led Germans to cease submarine warfare for a while

• But since U-Boats were Germany’s best weapons, they resumed use

• In 1916, Wilson was campaigning with the slogan “He kept us out of war”…and Germany sank the Arabic, so Wilson asked Congress to put the military into a state of preparedness for war (just in case)

Zimmerman Telegram

• In early 1917, the British intercepted a telegram from German Foreign Minister Zimmerman (called the Zimmerman telegram)

• It outlined a German plan to keep the US out of the European war

• The telegram stated that IF Mexico were to declare war on the US, Germany would give Mexico help in taking back their former land AND said that Germany would help Japan if Japan tried to take Hawaii back

• The telegram was published in American newspapers, convinced us that Germany was trying to take over the world…within a month, Wilson declared war on Germany (supported by most of the public)

World War I’s Impact on the Government

• Government’s power expanded greatly during the three years a American was involved in WWI

• The government took control of the telephone/telegraph/rail industries, and a massive bureaucracy arose to handle the new responsibilities

• The War Industry Board, created to coordinate all facets of industrial and agricultural production, sough to guarantee that not only the US but also the rest of the Allies would be well supplied (European production had been drastically cut by the war)

• The WIB had mixed success (it was slow/inefficient ‘cause it was big)

Civil Liberties

• In response to opposition to US involvement, Congress passed the Espionage Act in 1917 and Sedition Act in 1918

• The Espionage Act prohibited anyone from using the US mail system to interfere with the war effort OR the draft that was instituted under the Selective Service Act of 1917 upon America’s entry into the war

• The Sedition Act made it illegal to try to prevent the sale of war bonds OR to speak disparagingly about the government, the flag, the military, or the Constitution

• Like the Alien and Sedition Acts in the 1790s, both laws violated the 1st Amendment, but were worded vaguely so courts could defend ‘em

The Court Reports

• In 1919, the Supreme Court upheld the Espionage Act in three separate cases, including Schenck v. United States

• Schenck was a socialist and critic of American capitalism, arrested/convicted for violating the Espionage Act when he printed/mailed anti-draft leaflets; he said that the draft violated the 13th Amendment, which banned slavery (the wording of the amendment didn’t include “slavery”; it said “involuntary servitude”)

• Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes ruled that one’s freedom of speech/other civil liberties were NOT absolute…if your actions present a “clear and present danger” to others/the nation, you lose the freedom (like yelling “FIRE” in a crowded theater)

Paranoia

• In 1917, the Russian Revolution took place, placing Russia under Bolshevik control

• Suddenly, Americans began to fear a communist takeover. Radical labor unions, such as the international Workers of the World, were branded enemies of the state, and their leaders were incarcerated

• Eugene Debs, the Socialist leader, was imprisoned for criticizing the war

• The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was created to investigate and stop radicals from taking over

FBI

• J. Edgar Hoover was in charge of the FBI (he ran it ‘till the 1970s)

• Business assumed greater power, while unions lost power

• Under the pretext of stamping out radicalism, businesses increased their use of strikebreakers and other forceful tactics against unions

• The government helped: in the Palmer Raids in early 1920, the government abandoned all pretext of respecting civil liberties as its agents raided union halls, pool halls, social clubs, and homes to arrest 4,000 suspected radicals; six hundred were deported (some of them, just because they were sympathetic to communists)

Picture of J. Edgar Hoover

Frenzied Atmosphere

• The government used a wartime propaganda organization, the Committee on Public Information (CPI)

• As the war progressed, the CPI’s messages grew more sensational

• At lectures and movie theaters, in newspapers and magazines, the CPI created the image of the Germans as cold-blooded, baby-killing, power-hungry Huns

• During this period, Americans rejected all things German, and changed the name of sauerkraut to “liberty cabbage”

• Some German immigrants/Americans with German blood were attacked

Picture of Anti-German Propaganda

Women of WWI

• The number of women in the workforce didn’t increase that much, but the means of employment changed

• Women quit domestic work and worked in factories; at one point, 20% of all factory-floor manufacturing jobs were held by women

• These workplace advances ended with the war, as veterans returned home and took their jobs back

Rosie the Riveter

Blacks in WWI

• Southern blacks saw that wartime manufacturing was creating jobs in the North, and undertook a Great Migration to the big cities, like New York, Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit

• During the war, more than 500,000 blacks left the South in search of work

• Many blacks joined the army; W.E.B. DuBois encouraged blacks to enlist, hoping that military service would provide an inroad to social equality

• Sadly, the army segregated blacks, assigning them to menial labor (they assigned black combat units to French command)

Woodrow Wilson

• American participation in the war tipped the balanced in the Allies’ favor, and two years after America’s entry, the Germans were willing to negotiate a peace treaty

• Wilson wanted the war treaty to be guided by his Fourteen Points, his plan for world peace delivered to Congress in January of 1918, before the end of the war

• The Fourteen Points called for free trade through lower tariffs and freedom of seas; a reduction of arms supplies on all sides; the promotion of self-determination in Europe and overseas (the end of colonialism)

Fourteen Points/Treaty of Versailles

• The Fourteen Points plan also called for the creation of the League of Nations, a mechanism for international cooperation much like today’s United Nations

• Wilsons’ Fourteen Points served as a basis for initial negotiations, but they soon took a different direction

• The European Allies wanted a peace settlement to punish Germany; under the new Treaty of Versailles, Germany was forced to cede German and colonial territories to the Allies, to disarm, to pay huge reparations, and to admit total fault (even though other nations started the war); it humiliated them and left them in economic ruin

League of Nations

• The Treaty of Versailles did create the League of Nations

• Wilson hoped the League would ultimately remedy the peace settlement’s many flaws, but when he returned home, a rude surprise awaited him

• According to the Constitution, the president has the power to negotiate treaties with foreign nations, but these treaties are subject to Senate ratification

• This illustrates the principles of separation of powers and checks and balances

Central Conflict

• The debate over the League of Nations, particularly Article X of the League’s covenant, which many people believed curtailed America’s ability to act independently in foreign affairs, specifically Congress’s power to declare war

• The Senate split into three groups (Democrats, who sided with Wilson and were willing to accept America’s entrance into the League of Nations; a group of Republicans who were totally opposed to the League and were known as the Irreconcilables; and the Reservationists, a group of Republicans led by Henry Cabot Lodge, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Wilson’s political nemesis/intellectual rival)

Picture of Henry Cabot Lodge

Political Strife

• Wilson’s refusal to accept the Lodge (Henry Cabot Lodge’s) Reservations (critiques) showed his inability to compromise

• The Democrats and Irreconcilables joined forces and defeated the Treaty of Versailles, which had been amended to include Lodge’s suggestions

• The US never signed the Treaty of Versailles, and so was never part of the League of Nations, an international organization envisioned by an American President to maintain world peace

• We were heading back towards isolationism; Wilson fought back, but suffered a major stroke, and so the L.o.N. fight lost steam

Racist Wilson

• Wilson was an outspoken white supremacist

• He issued executive orders to segregate the federal government, struck a clause on racial equality from the League of Nations’ charter, wrote nice things about the Ku Klux Klan, and told racist jokes at Cabinet meetings

The Jazz Age

• After World War I the American economy went through a brief slump and then started to grow rapidly

• By 1922, America was hitting new peaks of prosperity

• The invention of a practical electric motor was responsible, like computers would be in the 1990s

• Electric motors became essential to work and home environments, driving industrial machines and household appliances

• With the new prosperity, other industries arose to serve the growing middle class in its search for the trappings of wealth

Pro-Business Republican Administrations

• With the end of the Progressive movement, Americans were more comfortable with large, successful businesses; the government worked with big business leaders to help the war effort, so they grew to be more pro-business

• Government regulatory agencies (like the Federal Trade Commission) assisted business more than regulated it

• Labor unions weren’t popular; unions striking for higher wages in the steel/coal/railroad industries were suppressed by federal troops

• The Supreme Court overturned a minimum wage for women and nullified child labor restrictions

Presidents

• All three of the era’s presidents—Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover—were pro-business

• Like Grant, Harding had corrupt advisors; several ended up in prison

• In the Teapot Dome Scandal, oil companies bribed the secretary of the interior in order to drill on public lands. Conservative on economic issues, Harding proved more liberal than his predecessor Wilson on issues of civil liberty

• He supported anti-lynching laws and gave farmers more money for farm loans. He died in office.

Picture of Warren G. Harding

Calvin Coolidge

• Coolidge, Harding’s VP, assumed the presidency

• When he ran in 1924, he ran on the slogan “Coolidge prosperity” and turned it into a debate about the economy

• He won and continued Harding’s conservative, pro-business policies AND pushed for lower taxes

• The pro-business atmosphere led to a decline in labor unions’ popularity; membership levels dropped

• Businesses tried to woo workers with pension plans and a communal spirit at work, trying to appease them; such efforts are called welfare capitalism

Picture of Calvin Coolidge

Modern Culture

• No consumer product better typified the new spirit of the nation than the automobile

• At first, automobiles were expensive conveniences, affordable only to the extremely wealthy; then, Henry Ford perfected the assembly line and mass production, which lowered the cost of automobiles

• The car let those who worked in the cities to move father away from city centers, thus giving birth to the suburbs, which, in turn, transformed the automobile from a convenience to a necessity

• The impact of the automobile on the 1920s was tremendous, forcing areas to quickly develop roadways and means of dealing with traffic

More Developments

• In 1929, with the population topping 100 million in the most recent census, more than 23 million automobiles were registered in the US

• The radio followed automobiles in changing the nation’s culture

• 10 million families owned radios, and in cities, several families would gather the home of radio owners and enjoy an evening together

• As more houses gained access to electric power, household appliance sales boomed as well

• The advertising industry grew up during the decade to hype all these new products

Consumerism

• Single-earner households needed more money to buy more things, so more women entered the working world

• The vast majority of married women stayed at home, but 15% (more than ever) entered the work force

• Women continued to work in female-dominated fields (“pink collar jobs”) like school teaching or office-assistant work, and earned much less than men

• A new image of women became a symbol of the Roaring Twenties—the flapper. World War I, the allure of the “big city,” the right to vote, and Sigmund Freud’s sexual beliefs opened up a new female culture

Picture of Flappers

Flappers

• Flappers discarded the corset, layers of petticoats and long, dark dresses worn by their Victorian grandmothers in favor of waistlessdresses worn above the knee, flesh-color silk stockings (from Paris), cute hats, strings of long beads, a wrist full of bracelets, and ruby-red lips

• Many flappers risked ruining their reputation by smoking cigarettes, drinking in public (despite Prohibition), and dancing the tango, lindy, and shimmy

Media

• Movies became popular during this decade; on movie screens, young, independent-minded, attractive characters succeeded in romance and struck it rich.

• Sports were more popular; Babe Ruth was the greatest baseball player at the time

• In literature, authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and playwright Eugene O’Neill were popular

• Many writers moved to Europe, where they talked about being alienated from modern times; they’re called the lost generation

Pictures of Babe Ruth, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and Eugene O’Neill

Harlem Renaissance

• In Harlem, the largest black neighborhood of New York City, cultural clubs/newspapers sprung up (called the Harlem Renaissance)

• W.E.B. Du Bois opened centers for writers

• Important people: poets Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston

• Another black cultural development: jazz music

• Because jazz concerned improvisation and free-spiritedness, the decade was known as the Jazz Age; the most popular of the jazz musicians was trumpeter Louis Armstrong

Pictures of Langston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Zora Neale Hurston, and Louis Armstrong

Backlash Against Modern Culture

• The Ku Klux Klan grew to over 5 million members, attacked blacks, Jews, urbanites. Anti-immigration groups grew stronger, targeting new southern/eastern European immigrants

• Two Italian anarchists, Sacco and Vanzetti, were arrested on charges of murder (the evidence was lacking, but they were convicted/executed)

• US set limits/quotas on immigration. The Emergency Quota Act of 1924 set quotas based on national origins, discriminating against “new immigrants” from southern/eastern Europe to reduce “foreign influence.”

Picture of Sacco and Vanzetti

Scopes Monkey Trial

• In 1925, Tennessee passed a law forbidding teachers to teach evolution

• John Thomas Scopes broke that law, and his trial, the Scopes Monkey Trial, drew national attention. Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan argued against each other (Bryan ran for president in 1896, 1900, and 1908).

• Scopes was found guilty, but the publicity gave the pro-science movement more influence

Picture of Scopes Monkey Trial

Prohibition

• Prohibition banned the manufacture, sale, transport of alcoholic beverages

• It had its roots in the reform campaigns of the 1830s; was a mainstay of women’s political agendas until, in 1917, the Eighteenth Amendment outlawed the American liquor industry. Many people soon came to resent the government’s intrusion into a private matter.

• Prohibition was weakened by the effectiveness of organized crime in producing/selling liquor, especially in the cities. Open warfare between gangs and law enforcement earned the name “gangster era.” Prohibition was repealed by the Twenty-First Amendment(1933).

Herbert Hoover

• In 1928, Republicans nominated Herbert Hoover

• Like Coolidge, Hoover was able to parlay a strong economy into an easy victory

• During his campaign, Hoover predicted that the day would soon come when no American would live in poverty. He was wrong.

The Great Depression

• In October of 1929, the stock market collapsed. Prices dropped. No matter how far they dropped, nobody wanted to buy. Hoover underestimated the damage; he thought the economy was sound, so he said that only stock traders would be hurt by irresponsible speculation.

• Traders had been allowed to buy on margin, which means that they only needed to put up 10-20% of each stock, allowing them to borrow against future profits that might not exist. Margin buying is now illegal.

• But those speculators included huge banks/corporations, which were going bankrupt and couldn’t pay employees/guarantee deposits…

Other Factors

• Immediately after World War I, the carnage of the conflict, along with Germany’s attempts to satisfy its reparations obligations under the Treaty of Versailles, had put Europe’s economy, and much of the rest of the world’s, into a depression.

• Domestically, manufacturers and farmers had been overproducing for years, creating large inventories. This led factories to lay of workers and made the farmers’ crop worth less on the market.

• Production of new consumer goods was outpacing the public’s ability to buy them. Supply REALLY exceeded demand—it led to deflation, unemployment, and business failures.

Depression’s Effects

• The government wasn’t strict in regulating large businesses, which led to the concentration of wealth/power in the hands of a very few businessmen. When their businesses failed, many people were thrown out of work.

• People lost their jobs as their employers went bankrupt (or, to avoid bankruptcy, laid off most workers). People lost their live savings as thousands of banks failed, and many lost their homes when they couldn’t keep up with mortgage payments. The homeless built shanty towns called Hoovervilles. In rural areas, farmer struggled to survive as produce prices dropped over 50%.

Picture of Hooverville

Dust Bowl

• A prolonged drought struck the Great Plains area of the Midwest at the same time, turning the region into a giant Dust Bowl

• The situation encouraged agrarian unrest; farmers fought evictions and foreclosures by attacking those who tried to enforce them

• Farmers also tried to keep prices at farm auctions low, then returned the auctioned property to its original owner

• They formed the Farmer’s Holiday Association, which organized demonstrations and threatened a nationwide walkout by farmers in order to raise prices

Taxes

• At first, Hoover didn’t want the federal government to help, because it violated the American ideal of “rugged individualism”

• As it got worse, he started farm assistance programs and campaigned for federal works projects (the Hoover Dam, the Grand Coulee Dam) to create jobs

• He thought raising taxes would help business, but the Hawley-Smoot Tariff hurt. It was the highest protective tariff in US History, enacted during our worst economic depression.

Hoover’s Worst Moment

• In 1932, Congress considered early payment of benefits of World War I veterans. Tens of thousands of poor veterans/families, calling themselves the Bonus Expeditionary Force, came to Washington in support

• It was defeated, and they refused to leave; they squatted in empty offices or built shanties and stayed through the summer

• In July, Hoover ordered the Army to expel them, which Douglas MacArthur chose to do with excessive force. He used the cavalry, tear gas, burned their homes, drove them from D.C. 100 died, including two babies who suffocated from tear gas

Hoover’s Downfall

• News of the army attack on the B.E.F. killed any chance of reelection for Hoover. He got the Republican nomination in 1932, stressing traditional values (though he conceded that Prohibition should be repealed).

• His opponent, New York Governor Franklin Delano Roosevelt, favored an interventionist government. Roosevelt promised relief payments to the unemployment, which Hoover had fought against. Roosevelt won easily.

Picture of Franklin D. Roosevelt

Roosevelt’s Inaugural Address

• Roosevelt declared war on the Depression, asking for the same powers presidents exercise in foreign wars

• He declared, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself”

• A powerful presidency and the people’s confidence in Roosevelt played a large part in implementing his famous reforms, the New Deal

• Early in 1933, Roosevelt summoned an emergency session of Congress to work out the recovery details. The next period is called the First Hundred Days because it was 100 days long and it was when FDR implemented most of the First New Deal’s reforms.

First New Deal: Helping the Banks

• Roosevelt passed the Emergency Banking Relief Bill to put poorly managed banks under the Treasury Department’s control. It granted government licenses/seals of approval to those that were solvent.

• In the first of his fireside chats broadcast over the radio, Roosevelt said that banks were secure. Over 60 million Americans re-deposited the savings they had withdrawn during the bank failures the very next week. Banks were healthy again.

• Later, the government passed the Banking Act of 1933, which created the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to guarantee bank deposits (so people wouldn’t lose their money if a bank went bankrupt). FDR created inflation on purpose to artificially raise prices

First New Deal: Helping the Poor

• Farmers were overproducing; they thought that they could make up for falling prices by growing more…but the more they produced the more prices fell (like in 1800, during the time of the Populists)

• Roosevelt’s solution was the Agricultural Adjustment Act (the AAA)…so many of FDR’s new agencies were referred to by acronyms that they were called “alphabet agencies”

• The AAA provided payments to farmers in return for their agreement to cut production by up to 50%; the money to cover this program came from increased taxes on meat packers, millers, and food processors. A month later, Congress passed the Farm Credit Act, which provided loans to farmers in danger of foreclosures

First New Deal: Government Control

• The National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) consolidated businesses and coordinated their activities to eliminate overproduction/stabilize prices

• The NIRA established the PWA (Public Works Administration), which set aside $3 billion to create jobs building roads, sewers, public housing units, and other civic necessities. At the same time, the CCC (Civilian Conservation Corps) provided grants to the states to manage their own PWA-like projects

• The government took over the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority). The TVA, which gave energy to the Tennessee Valley Region, expanded its operations, leading to quicker economic recovery

End of the First 100 Days

• In June 1933 Congress adjourned, ending the First 100 Days. Most of the projects were already in place, though the creation of the NLRB (National Labor Relations Board), which mediated labor disputes, and the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), which regulated the stock market—were implemented in 1934.

• The First New Deal was a huge political and economic success. Unemployment fell and wages rose. In the midterm elections of 1934, Democrats increased their majorities in both houses.

Keynesian Economics

• FDR was influenced by John Maynard Keynes. Keynes said that depressions are part of a cycle: people see the economy is bad, so they want to save money, so they don’t spend money, so businesses fail, so the economy gets worse.

• The solution was for the government to start deficit spending and create a multiplier effect that ensures that every dollar spent would do several dollars’ worth of good and help the economy. If the people who needed money desperately received a little extra, they would spend it on that they needed right away; that money would go to businesses, who could hire more people and pay more money, etc.

Keynes’s Impact

• The success of Keynesian economics during the FDR administration, especially as embodied during U.S. deficit spending during World War II, led to widespread acceptance of Keynes’s theories, which resulted in nearly thirty years of economic expansion (1945 to 1973)

Reactions

• Conservatives opposed the higher taxes of the New Deal, and the increase in government control of businesses

• They complained that relief programs removed the incentive for the poor to lift themselves out of poverty

• The government had to borrow to finance all of its programs, and its deficit spending was anathema to conservatives

• Leftists complained that the AAA policy of paying farmers NOT to grow was immoral, since many Americans were too poor to feed themselves. They also thought that government was too kind to businesses, and wanted to punish them for causing the Depression.

Socialist Support

• The despair caused by the Depression made the left grow more radical, and the Socialists and Communist Party of America were gaining popularity by calling for the nationalization (that is, a takeover by the government) of business

• In 1935, the Supreme Court started to dismantle some of the programs of the First New Deal in a series of cases (one of which was called the “sick chicken case”)

• Schechter Poultry Corporation v. United States invalidated sections of the NIRA on the grounds that the codes created under the agency were unconstitutional

Conservative Pushback

• According to the Constitution, only Congress can make laws. However, the NIRA empowered an agency within the executive branch of government to set wage and price ceilings, maximum work hours, and regulations regarding labor unions

• The court ruled that the codes were in effect “executive legislation” and beyond the limits of executive power

• Roosevelt had argued that like war, the Great Depression had created a national crisis that warranted the expansion of the executive branch of government. The following year, the Supreme Court struck down the AAA in United States v. Butler.

FDR’s Response

• Roosevelt “packed the court” with justices who supported his policies

• The size of the Supreme Court changed a few times since its creation, but Roosevelt’s attempt to increase the size of the court from nine justices to fifteen, giving him the power to pick justices whose views he liked, was too much for most Democrats, let alone Republicans.

• As a result, this court-packing scheme was rejected by Congress

Second New Deal

• In FDR’s Second New Deal, he established the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act (which created the Works Progress Administration/WPA), whose name was later changed to the Works Project Administration

• The WPA generated more than 8 million jobs, all paid for by the government

• Along with public works projects such as construction, the WPA also employed writers, photographers, and other artists to create travel guides and to record local and personal histories

Second Hundred Days

• The summer of 1935 is often called Roosevelt’s Second Hundred Daysbecause the amount and importance of legislation passed then is comparable to that of the First Hundred Days. During this period, Congress passed legislation that broadened the powers of the NRLB, democratized unions, and punished businesses with anti-union policies.

• During this time, Congress also created the Social Security Administration to provide retirement benefits or many workers, including the disabled and families whose main breadwinner had died Furthermore, the government increased taxes on wealthy individuals and top-end business profits.

New Deal Coalition

• The cumulative effect of FDR’s programs led to the creation of the New Deal Coalition, made up of union members, urbanites, the underclass, and blacks (who had previously voted Republican, out of loyalty to Lincoln’s party)

• This new Democratic coalition swept Roosevelt back into office with a landslide victory in 1936 and held together until the election of Reagan in 1980

Roosevelt’s Second Term

• Angry that the Supreme Court had overturned much of the First New Deal, and worried that the same will happen to the Second New Deal, FDR drafted a Judicial Reorganization bill. The bill proposed that Roosevelt be allowed to name a new federal judge for every sitting judge who had reached the age of 70 and had not retired; if passed, it would have allowed Roosevelt to add six new Supreme Court judges and more than forty other federal judges.

• A not-so-subtle effort at packing the courts with judges more sympathetic to Roosevelt’s policies, the bill was soundly defeated in the Democratic Congress, and FDR came under criticism. A number of justices retired pretty soon anyway, and FDR replaced them with liberal justices.

Recession

• In 1937, the economy went into recession, a period of continually decreasing output. The cause was twofold: Roosevelt, satisfied the New Deal was doing its job, cut back government programs in an effort to balance the budget. At the same time, the Federal Reserve Board tightened the credit supply in an effort to slow inflation. Both actions took money out of circulation, resulting in a slower economy.

• The recession lasted for almost three years and caused a substantial increase in the unemployment rate.

• By 1938, it seemed Europe might be at war again. FDR had to withdraw New Deal money to build the military.

Second Try

• The administration succeeded in passing a second AAA that met the standards set by the Supreme Court’s rejection of the first AAA; it also secured the Fair Labor Standards Act, which set a minimum wage and established the 40-hour workweek for many professions

• Those who liked the New Deal point to those who escaped poverty, and the banking/finance/union reforms.

• On the other hand, unemployment remained in the double digits. It spiked in 1937 when FDR took his foot off the gas. Today’s welfare system, love it or hate it, was started by the New Deal. Minorities reaped fewer benefits (the AAA hurt blacks and tenant farmers). Almost all of the public works projects were segregated.

Foreign Policy

• In the decade that followed World War I, American foreign policy objectives were aimed at maintaining peace; it’s called “independent internationalism.”

• The Washington Conference (1921-1922) gathered eight of the world’s great powers; the resulting treaty set limits on stockpiling armaments and reaffirmed the Open Door Policy towards China.

• In 1928, 62 nations signed the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which condemned war as a means of foreign policy. It had no enforcement clauses, but it was a symbolic first step.

Good Neighbor Policy

• In Latin America, the US tried to back away from its previous interventionist policy and replace it with the Good Neighbor Policy(1934)

• The US continued to actively promote its interests. The Platt Amendment was repealed. The US achieved its foreign policy objectives through economic coercion and support of pro-American leaders. The US also figured out how to maintain a strong but less threatening military presence by paying for the privilege of maintaining military bases in the countries and by arranging to train the nations’ National Guard units.

Asian Influence

• In Asia, the US had less influence. When Japan invaded Manchuria in 1931 (and in so doing violated the Kellogg-Briand Pact, which Japan had signed). The League of Nations was powerless, and America could do little.

• When Japan went to war against China in 1937, the US sold arms to the Chinese and called for an embargo on arms sales to Japan.

• However, fearful of provoking a war with Japan, the government did not order an embargo on commercial shipments to Japan from the US.

Protectionism

• Throughout the Republican Administration of the 1920s, the U.S. government kept tariffs high; this is called protectionism

• Early in FDR’s presidency, the government used economic leverage as a tool of foreign policy.

• The Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act allowed the president to reduce tariffs if he felt doing so would achieve foreign policy goals. Countries granted most favored nation (MFN) trade status were eligible for the lowest tariff rate set by the US. It remains a foreign policy tool today.

Neutrality

• Disenchantment with World War I led to more isolationism

• Led by Senator Gerald Nye, the Nye Commission reported in 1936 that American arms manufacturers bribed foreign officials and gave dictators weapons before, during and after WWI

• Congress passes neutrality acts. The first, passed in 1935, prohibited the sale of arms to either belligerent in a war. FDR sidestepped this in the 1937 sale of arms to China by refusing to say that China and Japan were at war.

• The second neutrality act banned loans to belligerents.

Picture of Gerald Nye

Military

• FDR lobbied to appeal the arms embargo from the first neutrality act so that America could arm the Allies (England, France, and the Soviet Union)

• When war broke out, Congress relented with a third neutrality act, which allowed arms sales and was termed “cash and carry.” It required the Allies to (1) pay cash for their weapons, and (2) come to the US to pick up their purchases and carry them away on their own ships

• From the outset of the war until America's entry in 1941, FDR angled the country toward participation, especially when Poland fell to German troops

WWII

• In 1940, Hitler invaded France, and a German takeover of France and England seemed real. FDR ran for an unprecedented third term to deal with it…and won.

• Within the limits of the neutrality acts, FDR assisted the Allies. He appointed pro-Ally Republicans to head the Department of War and the Navy, and instituted the nation’s first peacetime military draft.

• In 1941, Roosevelt forced the Lend-Lease Act through Congress, which led the US “lend” weapons to England, which had no money to buy them

• FDR sent American ships into the war zone to protect Lend-Lease shipments, which could have provoked the Germans

Pacts and Charters

• Later in 1941, FDR and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill met at the Atlantic Charter Conference. The Atlantic Charter declared the Allies’ war aims, which included disarmament, self-determination, freedom of the seas, and national security

• Given all this activity in the European theater, it seems odd that America’s entry to the war came not in Europe but in Asia. Japan entered into an alliance (called the Tripartite pact) with Italy and Germany in 1940. By 1941, France had fallen to Germany, and the British were too busy fighting Hitler to block Japanese expansion, which had contained into Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos.

Japanese Aggression

• The US cut off trade with Japan, which was dependent on foreign imports. The embargo included oil, which Japan needed to continue war. Despite peace talks in 11/1941 between the US and Japan to avoid war, the US had broken Japan’s secret communication codes and knew that japan was planning an attack, but did not know the location. Secretary of War Henry Stimson encouraged Roosevelt to wait for the Japanese attack in order to guarantee popular support for the war at home.

• The Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on December 7, and U.S. participation in the war began

Picture of the Bombing of Pearl Harbor

War Strategy

• The Grand Alliance between the West and the Soviet Union to defeat Hitler was weak…Joseph Stalin, the leader of the SU, was mad that the West took too long to open up a “second front” against Hitler while the SU kept suffering losses

• The first meeting of the “Big Three” (Roosevelt, Churchill, and Stalin) took place in the Iranian capital of Tehran in 11/1943. They planned the invasion of Normandy, France (called D-Day, or Deployment Day), and agreed to divide a defeated Germany into occupation zones after the war. Stalin also agreed to enter the war against Japan once Hitler had been defeated.

• The Allies fought the Germans primarily in the SU and in the Mediterranean until early 1944, when Allied forces invaded occupied France on D-Day. The SU paid a huge price in human/material loss because of it, and vowed to occupy Eastern Europe after the way in repayment

Picture of Joseph Stalin

Consequences

• The Allies won a war of attrition against the Germans, the Americans accelerated victory in the East by dropping two atomic bombs on the Japanese (on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945); this killed at least 129,000 people, and is the only use of nukes in history

• The government acquired more power as a result of the war; the War Production Board allowed the government to mobilize industry in return for businesses getting more money

• Rationing of most consumer goods was imposed. The government sponsored scientific research to develop better weapons (developing radar and the atomic bomb)

Size of Government

• The Labor Disputes Act of 1943 (passed in reaction to a number of strikes) allowed government takeover of businesses if national security was at stake, which let the government deal with unions. Hollywood made propaganda films. The size of government more than tripled during the war.

• FDR signed the Selective Training and Service Act of 1940, which created the first peacetime draft in U.S. history and gave birth to the current incarnation of the Selective Service System, which provided about 10 million soldiers towards the war effort.

• The draft was discontinued in 1973, after the US’s involvement in Vietnam, and the Selective Service System remained in place and requires that all male citizens register for the draft within 30 days of turning 18

Daily Life

• More than a million African-Americans served in the US military during World War II, but they lived and worked in segregated units. The US army was not desegregated until after the war, during the Truman administration in 1948. A popular image, familiar to most Americans, is that of Rosie the Riveter.

• Rosie came to symbolize the millions of women who worked in war-related industrial jobs during World War II. Most women were expected to take off the coveralls and put the apron back on when the soldiers returned home

Civil Liberties

• Fearful that the Japanese might serve as enemy agents within US borders, the government imprisoned more than 110,000 Asian Americans, over 66% of whom had been born the US and thus were citizens. Some weren’t even Japanese.

• None of them had ever been charged with a crime; imprisonment was just based on race

• The government placed them in prison camps far from the West Coast, where they feared a Japanese invasion would take place. Most lost their homes and possessions. This was Japanese internment.

Picture of Japanese Internment

Constitutionality of Internment

• The Supreme Court defended internment. As in the Schenck case of 1919, the Court ruled that a citizen’s civil liberties can be curtailed and even violated in time of war. Justice Hugo Black wrote, in Korematsu v. United States (1944), that “when under conditions of modern warfare…the power to protect must be commensurate with the threatened danger…”

• It wasn’t until 1988 that a government apology was made and reparations of about $1.6 billion were disbursed to surviving internees and their heirs

End of the War

• In February of 1945, the victorious Allies met at Yalta and redrew the world map. By this time, the Soviets controlled parts of Eastern Europe (a result of the campaign to drive the Germans out of the USSR)

• Stalin wanted to make a “buffer zone” between the SU and Western Europe. He wanted to surrounded himself with governments that were “friendly” to Moscow (Russia). Because of the presence of the Red/Russian Army, Stalin was given a free hand in Eastern Europe, with the promise to hold “free and unfettered elections” after the water.

Iron Curtain

• The SU invaded Romania three weeks after Yalta, thus beginning the establishment of Soviet satellite states and the descent of the Iron Curtain (it was a metaphor coined by Winston Churchill in 1946 to describe the symbolic division of Eastern and Western Europe, and thus the origins of the Cold War following World War II)

• The Allies agreed that once the war in Europe ended, the USSR would declare war on Japan. Towards the end of the war, the Allies created the United Nations to mediate further international problems. The Allies met up for a Potsdam Conference to implement the agreements from Yalta.

Potsdam Conference

• Roosevelt died of a hemorrhage/stroke after suffering from polio in April of 1945.

• Harry S. Truman became the new President. Things didn’t go well for Harry at Potsdam; with the war’s end closer and the Nazis no longer a threat, the differences between the SU and US were more pronounced

• Some argue that this American-Soviet conference prompted Truman to drop the atomic bomb on the Japanese (to intimidate the Soviets). The Japanese had fought tenaciously, and there was an estimated 500K causalities if the US invaded Japan. To end it quickly, two bombs were dropped—one on Hiroshima, one on Nagasaki.

Picture of Harry S. Truman